Typically many vehicles on the road today involve a roof rack system. Generally speaking, the roof rack system involves a pair of longitudinal rails extending aft from aft of the windshield along the roof. Although not necessarily permanently mounted to the longitudinal rails, there are often a plurality of transverse rails extending across the vehicle roof. When it is desired to carry a load on the roof of a vehicle, the load itself may be secured to the roof rack system. Alternatively, it may be possible to secure a carrier basket to the roof rack system of the vehicle. Roof rack systems of the type discussed above typically are installed on vehicles some times referred to as station wagons, and also on mini vans, SUVS or pick-up trucks. Generally speaking, such systems are installed on vehicles that have relatively elongate roofs extending over the vehicle cargo area. However, this invention is not limited to those types of vehicles as the invention may be applied to a more typical passenger car having a roof having a shorter longitudinal extent. The invention is also applicable to other roof rack systems such as those having a plurality of mounting pads on the vehicle roof.
Generally speaking when loads are carried on the roof, it is desirable to give the carrier as large a volumetric capacity as possible so as to enhance the load carrying capacity of the vehicle. Given this desirability, a load carrier is desirably as large as possible to accommodate the loads. However, a problem may then exist in that if the vehicle is to be parked in any kind of a height limited parking space whether a garage or other similar space, the height added to the vehicle by the load carrier basket may be detrimental to access by the vehicle. Accordingly, in order to handle this problem, systems have been developed to provide a collapsible carrier that is movable between a deployed, in use position and a folded, storage position.
Typical of prior art patents showing such systems, is U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,422 issued Aug. 26, 1975. In that patent entitled Folding Car Top Carrier, the device appears to move between a load carrying position and a folded position by use of a number of sliding, telescopically arranged tubular members.
It would be desirable to have a basket which is movable between a load carrying position and a storage position which does not make use of telescopic sliding tubular members. Such telescopic sliding tubular members may be subject to failure as a result of debris being deposited in the sliding tubular connection as the vehicle is driven.